Now that the tomatoes are finally starting to pop in our garden, we have a legit reason to eat more pizza – homemade pizza sauce, yo! Well, technically this is a wonderfully chunky marinara sauce, but who’s counting?

Enjoyed in place of your regular, boring old store-bought red sauce, this homemade marinara sauce produces a pie that’s almost white, but not quite: cooked down so that there’s not much excess liquid, the “sauce” mostly consists of chunks of tomatoes – juicy tomatoes, bursting with flavor. Not sauce, but saucy!

imho, the teeny-tiny tomatoes – super sweets, Juliets, etc. – work best in this recipe. Cut the round, grape-shaped tomatoes in half; the miniature oblong tomatoes into three to five rounds. Or not: some tomatoes are tiny enough that you can just toss ’em in the pan whole. They’re like the cherries on your vegan ice cream sundaes, I tell you what. Way more flavorful than their supersized cousins!

Mozzarella Follow Your Heart cheese, or the vegan cheese of your choice
Cornmeal or cooking spray with which to coat the pizza stone or pizza pan

Directions

1. To prepare the dough: stir the water, sugar and yeast together until dissolved. Add the olive oil, salt, and rosemary. Stir in the flour until blended. Form the dough into a small ball and let rest in large bowl, covered loosely with a towel, anywhere from 30 minutes to two hours.

2. About 45 minutes before you’d like to start making the pizza, begin preparing the marinara sauce. Coat the bottom of a large skillet with the olive oil. Add the diced onion and cook on medium-high heat for about five minutes, or until the onions are nearly translucent. Add the minced garlic and cook for several more minutes. Add the diced tomatoes, sundried tomatoes, basil, and oregano and cook, covered on medium, for about ten minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove the cover; add salt & pepper (as well as extra basil or oregano, if desired) to taste. Continue to cook, uncovered, until the tomatoes are soft and tender and most of the liquid has evaporated. The tomatoes should be nice and juicy, but without a lot of extra moisture in the sauce. Remove from heat and set aside to cool.

4. To assemble the pizza, start by spreading a dusting of cornmeal onto your pizza stone (or lightly coat your pizza pan with cooking spray). Using fingers dipped in olive oil (optional), pat the dough onto the stone, spreading it out evenly. Add the marinara sauce, distributing it evenly onto the pizza. (This recipe should make enough sauce for one 13″ pizza. If you have any leftovers, store them in an airtight container in the fridge or freezer. Enjoy on pasta – or, better yet, on a mini pita bread pizza!) Garnish with vegan mozzarella cheese and a touch of oregano.

5. Bake at 425 degrees, for between 15 and 20 minutes for a single pizza, or 30 minutes for two pizzas.

Happy Vegan Pizza Day, y’all! Well, technically Vegan Pizza Day was on Saturday, but no matter – every day is Vegan Pizza Day at the Garbato-Brady household!

To celebrate, we made two pies: a french fry pizza and a scrambled tofu “breakfast” pizza. The french fry pizza is old hat, but the scrambled tofu pizza? That’s all-new, baby!

It’s a concoction I’ve wanted to try for some time now, but wasn’t entirely sure how to pull off. Do I let the tofu scramble bake with the pie? Bake it beforehand so that it’s twiced-baked? But won’t that risk drying the tofu out? Maybe I should make it separately and add it to the pizza just prior to serving? So many possibilities!

It was a tough choice, but in the end I went with option B – and it worked out spectacularly! To help keep the tofu moist, I only lightly pressed it, so that it still retained a little moisture upon entering the skillet. Once finished, we nestled the scrambled tofu – which is adapted from a recipe found in Cooking Vegan by Vesanto Melina and Joseph Forest – between two layers of cheddar Daiya cheese, to help keep it nice and juicy. And of course the garlic sauce helped too!

While this scrambled tofu tastes incredible atop a pizza, you can also enjoy it solo. Or, for a special treat, put it – along with some with vegan gravy and/or breakfast sausage – in an English muffin to make a vegan Egg McMuffin. May I suggest the light mushroom gravy in Cooking Vegan, paired with a Lightlife Smart Links?

Cheddar Daiya cheese, or the vegan cheese of your choice
Cornmeal or cooking spray with which to coat the pizza stone or pizza pan

Scrambled tofu in progress!

Directions

1. To prepare the dough: stir the water, sugar and yeast together until dissolved. Add the olive oil and salt, as well as any extra spices or seasonings. Stir in the flour until blended. Form the dough into a small ball and let rest in large bowl, covered loosely with a towel, anywhere from 30 minutes to two hours.

2. About a 45 minutes before you’d like to start making the pizza, begin preparing the scrambled tofu. Lightly press the brick of tofu for five to ten minutes to drain the excess moisture. In a large skillet, heat the olive oil on medium heat. Add the sliced mushrooms and cook on medium for about ten minutes, or until the mushrooms begin to brown. Add the diced onion and continue to cook for another five minutes, or until the onions are translucent. Add the garlic, tomatoes, and corn and continue to cook for another five minutes, or until the corn and tomatoes are tender.

3. As the veggies are cooking, place the tofu in a large bowl and mash it with a fork until it becomes crumbly. Add a tablespoon of the nooch and mix well.

4. Pour the tofu into the skillet and mix it in with the veggies. Reduce the heat to low. Add the rest of the nutritional yeast, soy sauce, cumin, turmeric, parsley/chives, and the salt. Mix well. Cook for another few minutes on low; continue to stir. When done cooking, remove from the heat, cover, and set aside.